The Protomen

I Fight Dragons

Lead vocalist/guitarist Brian Mazzaferri describes the band’s enigmatic style best. “We’ve got pop rock elements, but we’ve also got original music made using old video game soundcards. We abuse those Gameboy and NES soundcards in a set of musical modes that were defined by early video game music.”
“We’re basically trying to be a cyborg band,” jokes guitarist Packy Lundholm.

Whether or not they’re terminators sent back in time on a mission of rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t matter, because no soundcard is safe from I Fight Dragons. In early 2008, Brian partnered up with keyboardist Bill Prokopow in order to transform a solo demo of “Heads Up, Hearts Down” into something more. “Bill and I stumbled upon chiptune,” says Brian. “I told him that I wanted the beginning of the song to sound like Nintendo music. We used synthesizers at first, but we learned about chiptune soon after. We realized there were ways to access those soundcards and control them in the studio. From there, it was a no-brainer to connect the dots and do rock music in the songs we were making.”